I dream of spades.

spring is cool and wet and breath is sun

I tread on mulch,

brown flower petals crushed to carpet

soft, dead, bleeding on my sneakers

buds bloom and fall and crush

the shag grows, toes stumble through

push down, turn up

long nights and startling middays to part

pink brown pink

an indecisive sea that steeps, stains

my shoes, once white, gore-aged

too far gone.

sap seals leather cracks,

and spring will pass. perhaps.

if I set them on the shelf